Why genetic testing should scare your pants off

Review of The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

I was in 5^th grade when my love for Nancy Farmer began. I read A Girl Named Disaster and gobbled up every word. I loved learning about the different cultures in the book and completely devoted myself to going on an adventure with the protagonist.

From there I read The House of the Scorpion and fell in love all over again. After that the two books sat on my shelf until my senior year of high school when I had to do an independent reading project for AP Biology.

Yes, you heard that right: AP Biology.

We had to choose a young adult novel that displayed scientific themes and I don’t remember exactly why we had to do this but I do remember thinking “This is an English project for a science class…I’m gonna read a book I’ve already read.”

(Author’s Note: That fleeting thought was long before I knew what literacy across the curriculum was and I now see the value of the science class YA novel book report thank you very much.)

I decided to re-read The House of the Scorpion, and let me tell you somewhere between 5^th and 12^th grade the reading experience changed drastically.

I still loved the book, but now that I was older and fully understood the impact of some of the scientific material in the book I finally understood why it could be controversial.

*Summary Contains Spoilers*

The book is set in the future North America in a country called Opium which lies between the United States and Mexico. Per its moniker, Opium is an opium-producing country ruled by a drug lord named Matteo Alacran aka El Patron.

In Opium we meet our protagonist, Matt, a young boy who lives in a little house with a housekeeper named Celia. Celia is a chef at “The Big House” but Matt isn’t allowed to leave their little abode. One day other children stumble upon his home and Matt tries to follow them. He ends up being taken to The Big House where he is thrown in a “prison” and treated like an animal for months.

Finally, El Patron finds out about Matt’s treatment and frees him. Matt realizes he has a place of status with El Patron but doesn’t really know why. All of the people at The Big House except Celia, Matt’s bodyguard Tam Lin, and a senator's daughter, Maria, treat Matt like an animal still.

So, it turns out that Matt is a clone of El Patron. That’s right; he has been born for one reason and one reason only: so El Patron can harvest his organs. There have already been at least 6 “Matts” at The Big House and they have all been harvested so El Patron is like SUPER OLD.

Matt also discovers that clones are supposed to be injected with some stuff that makes their brains turn to mush so they are basically vegetables ripe for harvest anyways. For one reason or another El Patron keeps Matt smart and hires tutors for him. Our protagonist is convinced that El Patron is educating him so he can finally retire and Matt can take over the drug cartel.

Of course, drug lords can’t be trusted and as soon as El Patron has a heart attack he comes a-looking for Matt’s fresh young organs.

Matt escapes and El Patron dies, but that does not end the problems for our clone friend. He has to try to cross the border into America, and in order to do so has to endure child labor, Marxism, and lead said group of child laborers in a revolution against said Marxists.

Yeah, Nancy Farmer plays for keeps.

Matt makes it to freedom and finds Maria who gets him in contact with her politically-charged mother. Together they help all the child laborers and begin to take legal action against the illegal drug trafficking.

In the end Matt returns to The Big House to find few people still standing. El Patron, the spiteful old drug lord, served poison wine at his funeral and his entire family is dead. Matt is his only living heir and takes over Opium.

I know it all seems hunky-dory at the end, but this novel is actually bittersweet. Most of Matt’s already-few allies (except Celia) are dead. He’s been through a heck of a lot and he’s in for more. There’s also the whole question of the cloning: will anyone truly see him as a real person?

This book brings up really interesting questions about the morality of genetic testing and cloning as well as questions about freewill. Matt may be a clone of El Patron but is he his own man? In a nature vs. nurture setting Matt ends up not being anything like his gene daddy. He even dismantles the drug cartel in the end and tries to make Opium better.

Report Card:

I give The House of the Scorpion a definite A. Farmer is an underrated writer and should gain much more recognition for her body of work. This book is great for high school for many reasons. It’s at a fair reading level so even kids who aren’t grade-level readers could get into it. It also raises a lot of questions about modern science and human nature that more advanced readers can tackle. Because of the science laced throughout the book this novel is also great to use across the curriculum—that’s a shout out to my AP Bio teacher.

For the love of the pickle dish

Review of: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

My junior year of college, my brother was in his junior year of high school. He was in Honors 11 English, just like me, with the same teacher and everything. One night I received a phone call from my mom;

“So, your brother just got assigned the next book for Honors.”

 

“Yeah, what is it?”

“It’s Ethan Frome.”

“Oh God, he’ll hate it.”

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is probably the first book I recognized as “real literature.” I’d read To Kill a Mockingbird and my fair share of Billy Shakes and things like that, but this was REAL LITERATURE about MATURE themes like love and heartbreak and pickle dishes.

Don’t get me wrong, when I started Ethan Frome I was into it. The forbidden love and all appealed to my high school self. But before getting halfway through the book is when my problems began.

*Summary Contains Spoilers*

The book is told in an extended flashback by the narrator who gets snowed in at the Frome household. During the course of the snowy eve the narrator learns all the details of tragedy that struck the household 20 years before.

Basically you’ve got Ethan and his wife Zeena, they live on a farm in Starkfield, Massachusetts.  They don’t particularly like each other and only got married because Zeena cared for Ethan’s mom on her deathbed so to repay her Ethan saved poor Zeena from spinsterhood.

Zeena is very ill for one reason or another and her young cousin Mattie comes to live with them to help out. Ethan has a crush on Mattie and is super stoked when Zeena says she’s going out of town overnight to see a new doctor.

Thus we commence the greatest description of sexual tension ever written.

Mattie prepares dinner and sets a special table, including Zeena’s “favorite” pickle dish. The dish is shattered when the cat knocks it over. Mattie is upset, but Ethan brushes it off not wanting to ruin his perfect evening. Then they sit by the fire and Ethan enjoys his pipe and Mattie sews. Ah, it is almost as if they were married and all Ethan wants is to confess his love to this beautiful young girl. But before he gets a chance she goes to bed and nothing happens.

Nothing. Happens.

The fact that nothing happened after pages and pages of rising tension is annoying enough, but my problems started before this. The bottom line: Mattie is a child of neglect and Ethan is the first person who has ever paid attention to her. As I read the book I couldn’t help but feel horrible for Ethan because all I could think was they Mattie didn’t really love him romantically as much as she loved him as a father figure.

Can you say hello daddy issues?

The next day Zeena comes home and of course notices the broken pickle dish right off the bat. I don’t know about you, but when I come back from a night away the first place I look is high on the shelf where I keep breakable crap I haven’t looked at since it was given to me as a wedding present.

But that’s just me.

Zeena tells Ethan her health is fading fast and they need to hire a better equipped girl to help around the house and Mattie’s getting the boot. Ethan puzzles and puzzles over ways Mattie can stay but all his plans fall through. Later on, when he’s taking Mattie to the station to catch a ride to her next gig she comes up with the perfect solution to fix all their problems.

They get on a sled and careen down a hill into a tree in an attempted suicide pact. Those daddy issues will kill you, man.   

Ethan is injured and Mattie is paralyzed. They both go back to the farm and Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena live out the rest of their lives together.

Which leads me to wonder: If she’s spent over 20 years caring for an invalid and a paraplegic then how sick was Zeena in the first place, really?

Report Card:

I take some issue with this being a school book because I don’t think it’s universal. I knew my brother would hate this book; what 17 year old boy wouldn’t? It contains nothing teen boys are interested in. As a teen girl I could latch on to the forbidden romance and the danger of discovery and the spitefulness of cats. But other than that, I have little empathy for these characters. 

I will say that had I read this book in college rather than high school I may have had a different opinion about it. Had we spent less time talking about our feelings about spiteful cats and more time analyzing the actual text I would have liked it better. That being said: death by sled is just silly. 

As John Mayer would say: “Fathers be good to your daughters”…or else they have too much baggage and kill themselves with sleds. Ethan Frome gets an A for the build-up of tension, but overall I give it a C.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

How many times have you heard a high school English teacher get asked that question to end all questions: “Why do we have to reeeeead thisssss!?!?”

I’ve always been a reader. For me, “playing outside” meant mastering 1-handed skills. I could pedal my bike in figure 8s around the driveway with my nose in a book—steering with my right hand and the book in my left. I’d swing, climb trees, and wander through the woods all while reading.

Of course I’ll be the first to admit I had a love/hate relationship with English class. There were definitely some teachers I didn’t get along with, and some books I whined about. Even though there was some whining and complaining, I love books. I love literature. I love reading. I love words.   

These loves led me to become an English Education major at Syracuse University. The best part of my teaching experiences was playing matchmaker between my students and books. It was amazing to see some of their eyes light up when I pulled something new off the shelf. The same students who claimed “books make my brain hurt!” were those who realized books can change people, and ease painful situations.

It was also a pleasure to be able to be a part of the conversations regarding what books were chosen for the 11^th grade curriculum. Why we had the books we had and also what new books should be added. I gave each of my students an index card and asked them “What do you want to read?” For many this was the first time they had ever been asked that and they relished the opportunity. Some of the most non-English-y kids turned in full index cards.

Giving a kid the perfect book for them is like giving a mouse a cookie. Soon they’ll be back for more.

As my college career comes to a close I’ve been thinking back on all the books I’ve read for school over the years. Since junior year of high school I’ve kept a list of all the books I’ve read both for class and for fun.

As I reviewed the list I started thinking about why I’d read some of these books and whether or not they were worth it. Did I get more out of my leisure reading or my required reading? Would required reading have been better if I’d read it leisurely? Do any of my leisure books have a place in the classroom?

I decided to start this blog to answer these questions. A blog that will do more than simply review books and discuss “What is literature?” I want to discuss the real-life impact of some of the most popular books read in schools these days as well as the books I’ve read to supplement my required reading.

So, how does it work?

Each entry will contain a brief summary of the book along with my commentary and analysis, followed by a brief Report Card. The report card is my rating of the book on a scale of A-F along with my thoughts on whether or not said book belongs in a classroom context.

With the invention of the Kindle and Nook, and ebooks becoming all the rage, books are going to be in for an interesting time. The same goes with teaching as state standards are being re-worked and new teacher evaluations are starting a revolution. I figure this is perfect timing to start a blog combining the two loves of my life: books and the act of passing them on to others who I know will love them as much as I do.